Two Napoleonic relics : a paper read before the February meeting of the York Pioneer and Historical Society

The EDITH and LORNE PIERCE
COLLECTION of CANADI ANA

§lueenys University at Kingston

QUEEN'S

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

KINGSTON, ONTARIO
CANADA

The EDITH and LORNE PIERCE
COLLECTION o^ CAN Am am a

Queen'

A PAPER

Read befort the February meeting of
the York Pioneer and His-
torical Society

REV. HENRY 5CADDING, D. D.

TORONTO:

The Evening Telegka.m.

TWO NAPOLEONIC RELICS.

We must all of us have remarked that
in the dates which we have been famil-
iarly using for several years past are
the exact counterparts, if we substitute
eight for seven, of dates with which we
are very familiar as having been those
of events of a striking character, oc-
curring just at the close of the last
century. It seems a very little while
ago since we were using the dates 1889-
92-94, and we could not help being re
minded thereby of similar dates, 1789,
storming of the Bastile, 1793-94, the
Reign of Terror, and other dates mark-
ing dreadful events in the drama not yet
entirely played out, known as the French
Revolution.

We also here in Western Canada have
bad several centennial celebrations late-
ly, that of the organization of the Pro-
vince of Upper Canada, for example, and
holding of its first Parliament in 1792,
the laying out of York, i.e., Toronto, in
1793, and so forth, and in this year,
1895, we recall the close of the ever-
memorable administration of Governor
Simcoe in 1795.

Kow unaware were our forefathers of
the startling events which were occur-
ring in Europe at the very moment when
they were acting and moving and mak-
ing their mark on the soil of Canada
here ; and it is often well for us for our
comfort and peace of mind, that we are
not made acquainted with things that
are happening at particular momenta
just outside our own sphere.

By a curious engraving which I hap-
pen to possess, I am reminded that about
this time 100 years ago Napoleou Bona-
parte was beginning to be the terror of
Western Europe.

In three-years* time from 1795 he was
seriously threatening England with in-
vasion at the head of an overwhelming
force. It was simply at the moment,
perhaps, only a pretence just to spread
alarm and to cover ulterior designs. He
collected at St. Malo, on the coast of
Brittany, iu France, an immense force,
naval and military, ostensibly for
the invasion of England ; but in reality
it was probably from the very outset
intended simply to mask the attack
upon Egypt, which he suddenly made in
the year 1798, and which was so gal-
lantly checkmated by Nelson at the Bat-
tle of the Nile.

It is in connection with the gathering
of an armament for the alleged invasion
of England that the old engraving in
my possession has an interest. I have
accordingly determined to exhibit it to
you. It was found among the papers of
my father, who, I know, set a particu-
lar value upon it as having been secured
by him at the time of the great alarm
felt in England at the prospect of an in-
vasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. More-
over, it may not be inappropriate to
do so in that the name and fame of
Napoleon are at the present time under-
going a revival in consequence of the
simultaneous publication of illustrated
memoirs of Napoleon in several popular
periodicals.

The print to which I refer professes
to give a view of a huge raft as seen

afloat at St. Malo in February, 1798,
and was " published February 13, 1798,
by John Fairburn, No. 146 Minories,
London." This engraving represents the
apparatus for conveying the expeditioD
to the shores of England, consisting of
a kind of gigantic ferry raft, bearing in
the midst apparently a bomb-proof,
metal-sheathed citadel and surmounted
by a tall mast, bearing a flag some-
what resembling the tri-color of later
years.

The whole raft is supposed to be pro-
pelled forward by means of tour engines
contained in the same number of low
towers, situated two at each end : each
engine • turns a paddle-wheel of large
diameter, set in motion by a con-
trivance of six horizontal sweeps placed
on the top of the towers, so as to be
acted upon by the wind after the man-
ner of the great sweeps of a windmill,
only moving not vertically, but as we
have said horizontally.

We have here paddle-wheel propulsion
of yov\ large vessels, anticipated with
wind instead of steam as the moving
agent.

On the flat floor of the rait are seen
squadrons of cavalry proceeding at full
gallop, in perfect order, however, pass-
ing across the surface, having entered
the ^rea.t floating affair by a set of
dra w-bridges at one end, which can evi-
dently be lifted up when the process of
embarkation is completed, whilst a cor-
responding set of drawbridges to be used
for debarkation are seen at the other
eud already hauled up.

They are deploying round and passing
into an arched entrance to quarters pro-

5

vided for them in the basement of the
central fortress or citadel.

The engraving before us informs us
that this extraordinary structure was
600 feet long by 300 broad, mounts 500
pieces of cannon, 36 and 48-pounders,
and is to convey 15,000 troops, etc., for
the invasion of England.

In the background is seen the Town
of St. Malo, partially lining the shore,
with adjoining heights, each crowned
with a signal tower and flagstaff. Park-
man, in his •■ Pioneers of France in the
New World," page 181, thus describes
the town of St. Malo :—

" The ancient town of St. Malo, thrust
out like a buttress into the sea, strange
and grim of aspect, breathing war from
its walls and battlements of rugged stone
—a stronghold of privateers, the home
of a race whose intractable and defiant
independence neither time nor change
has subdued— has been for centuries a
nursery for hardy mariners."

Parkmau then refers to Jacques Car-
tier, in whom Canadians are so much
interested, inasmuch as it was from this
port that he sailed on his famous voy-
age of discovery in the New World,
April 20, 1534.

Parkman describes the portrait of
Jacques Cartier preserved at St. Malo,
now become familiar to all Canadians
from Hamel's copy thereof.

Parkman informs us that it shows him
as a man of bold, keen features, bespeak-
ing a spirit not apt to quail before the
wrath of man or of the elements.

In the account appended to the engrav-
ing of the St. Malo raft, it should be
subjoined, we are told, that a bomb-

proof arrangement was made for the
working of the paddle-wheels by horse-
power, whenever the wind apparatus
should be unavailable.

It may be added, too, that another
great raft, the exact counterpart of the
one described, is seen in the distance,
putting out to sea, whilst a

fleet lies in readiness in the

harbor under the heights close by.
Whether these formidable appliances for
the invasion of England were ever con-
structed in all their completeness or not
may be a question, but it is not im-
probable that we have in these pictures
of them reproductions of adumbrasions
made in outline by the hand of the clever
Engineer Napoleon himself.

After the abortive preparations of 1798
Napoleou still did not relinquish the de-
signs which he had formed for the in-
vasion of England. In the year 1804
he assembled an armament with the
same object in view on a vast scale, but
on this occasion not at St. Malo, but
at the port of Boulogne, nineteen miles
south-west of Calais.

In the meantime he had caused himself
to be elected Emperor of the French.

His armj-, which was styled the Army
of England, now consisted, it is said,
of 180,000 men. and a flotilla of 2,400
transports*. Napoleon, fully confident of
the success of this renewed attempt on
England, had the die of a medal pre-
pared, which was to be struck on his
taking possession of London. The en-
graver was Jeuffroy, the designer was
Demon, the device on the reverse was
Hercules holding an amphibious monster
in the air, half man and half sea-serpent,

crushing it to death. The monster, of
course, represented England, and Her-
cules was France.

In the mind of Napoleon and his artists
the wish was doubtless father to the
thought, but. ass we know, it was not
destined to be fulfilled.

The allusion in the device is to tv«>
mythological story of the destructic
Antaeus by Hercules. Antaeus, as
story goes, was the son of Neptuj
Terra, and was powerless so long ..
was kept from contact with Mottle
Earth, a contact he was ever desirous
of repeating.

I exhibit the engraving of the medal
thus described, which appears in Plate
V., contained in Edward Edwards' Napo-
leon Medals, published in London by Paul
and Dominie Colnaghi in 1837. At page
15 of that work we are informed that
" the dies of this medal were engraved
in Paris, at the epoch when the expe-
dition against England was preparing,
and were intended to have been employed
in London after the taking of that
city."

As the expedition did not take place,
the medal was never struck. Some im-
pressions, however, in soft metal and
fine plaster of Paris were made, and
from them at a later period Eac similes
were derived, copies of which are occa-
sionally found in the cabinets of the
curious.

The medal bears the inscription in
French, " Descente en Angleterre," i.e..
" Attack on England," and below
are the words " Frappee a Londres,
1804," i.e., " Struck at London in the
year 1804." But London was not captur-

8

ed. The trained bands of London stood in
the way, and more formidable still were
the people of the three Kingdoms, linked
together as one united phalanx for de-
fence.

It is somewhat singular that a lofty
and conspicuous column 164 feet in
height should be seen to this day on the
heights above Boulogne, recalling the
memory of Napoleon's quixotic ideas in
regard to the annexation of England to -
the Empire of France.

How noble is the future which offers
itself to the British Empire throughout
the globe, could it* sons everywhere be
induced to dwell together in unity, and
on every critical occasion to act like
their forefathers when a tyrant sought
to lay a yoke upon their necks. In this
way, what Shakespeare said of the lim-
ited England of his time will be ful-
filled in the case of the greater Eng-
land of to-day, and still more in the
case of the vaster and more compact
British Empire of the following ages.

I close with a portion of his words
to be found at the end of the famous
tragedy of " King John," making there-
in the verbal change of " the Empire "
for England :

*' This Empire never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.

Come the three corners of the world in

arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall

make us rue,
Let but the Empire to itself rest true."

'